Mathematically speaking, a ziggurat is a cube since its height is equal to one of the sides of its square base, just as St John’s text says… (Revelation 21/16) "the length and the breadth and the height of it are equal."
But physically, a ziggurat is a stepped pyramid, each step representing a mathematical progression and ending with a temple (the house of god) at the top.
The ziggurat at Babylon (the tower of Babel) was built in seven stages, each stage 360¢ or 6° lower in height than its predecessor and the width of each stage represented a parallel of latitude beginning with the 33° latitude parallel of Babylon itself (see Steccini/Thompson "Secrets of the Great Pyramid").
According to an ancient text the ziggurat had a height of 295ft and a square base which measured 295ft per side. When this was measured by modern day archaeologists they found the base to measure 300ft per side (Readers Digest – "the World’s Last Mysteries"). Now a base of 300ft would be 3600 inches which in turn would be 144 sacred cubits of 25" which we will recall was the dimension of the wall given in Revelation 21/17 "And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel."
The ziggurat was contained within a precinct which in turn was surrounded by an outer wall and it seems likely that the 500 reed wall of Ezekiel which also measured 12,000 ‘furlongs’ or great cubits in Revelations giving a side of 1.42 miles and perimeter of 5.68 miles was the perimeter wall which enclosed the grounds of the ziggurat and temple complexes. In fact, a substantial perimeter wall of this dimension, 5.68 miles in perimeter has been found surrounding the temple complexes at Uruk, and the ziggurats at Ur and Uruk are also said to have reached heights of 300ft. A wall of similar dimensions also surrounded the temple complexes at Babylon and within this wall which was a double wall with outer and inner gates, lay various temples with their respective courtyards, with the stepped ziggurat right at the centre again contained within its own courtyard. In Babylon, the complex was bisected by the river Euphrates which ran through its centre, just as the city described by Ezekiel had a river which flowed out eastwards crossing through the desert to discharge into the sea.
Just as the Biblical description of the Flood has a predecessor in the Sumerian flood legends of Gilgamesh, it seems on reflection very reasonable that Ezekiel could have been given a guided tour of the ziggurat or Tower of Babel (the name Bâb-ili means ‘gateway of God’ in Old Babylonian) by his captor priests, and used these dimensions as the basis for the City/Temple seen in his vision.
The origins of the Sumerians themselves is not completely known, did they bring their mathematical system with them when they arrived on the Plain of Shinar or did they originate it there? That the Ziggurat should have a base side of 300ft is curious since a normal stadium of 600ft would be a 1/10th of a minute of degree but a stadium of 300 ft would be a 1/20th of a minute of degree and the number 20 was the cornerstone of Aztec or middle American mathematics. The Aztecs claimed to come from the island of ‘Aztlan’ which today we can identify as the island of Atlantis – presently called South America - (see my previous book "Atlantis – The Andes Solution") and readers of that book will recall that the physical dimensions of the rectangular plain Plato described as being the site of Atlantis were 3,000 x 2,000 stades.
This rectangular plain we previously identified as the Bolivian Altiplano adjacent to Lake Poopo and it measured on the ground 3,000 x 2,000 stades or "half-stades" of 300ft – the unit mentioned above. Confirmation that this unit of 300ft was at one time considered to be a ‘stade’ is further given in a quotation by the Greek historian Herodutus who visited the Tower of Babel in 454BC twenty five years after it had been made a ruin by the conquering Persian king, Xerxes. Herodotus recorded that the site contained a "solid central tower, one furlong square with a second erected on top of it and then a third etc". Since the tower physically measures 300ft per side, then 300ft is the length of this particular ‘furlong’ or stadium. This confirms that Plato’s stadium relative to the Plain of Atlantis was not necessarily the 600ft stadium of the time in which he was writing, but an earlier 300ft stadium such as that used in the Tower of Babel and the correct physical dimensions of the rectangular plain on the Bolivian Atliplano.
J.Alden Mason writing in "The Ancient Civilisation of Peru" quotes measurements of lines set out on the plain of Nazca which have standard lengths of 595ft – in Babylonian/Sumerian units this would suggest a standard length of 360 Sumerian cubits of 19.8² was intended.
He also quotes roads in Peru as being of a standard width of 33ft – and 33ft is half a standard surveying chain from Babylon/Sumeria and comprises 50 links each of 12 ‘shusi’ of 0.66² or 60 hands each of 10 shusi of 0.66² which either way comes to 20 Sumerian cubits of 19.8² .
The distance between rest houses on the royal Inca roads he tells us was a standard of 4½ miles – which in Sumerian units would be 360 standard surveying chains of 66ft (each chain was 60 feet in length if we use the Sumerian foot of 13.2² which was 20 Sumerian shusi).
As to Inca bricks, Alden Mason gives the average size as being 32 by 8 by 8 inches – in units of Sumerian shusi of 0.66² this would suggest a brick of 48 x 12 x 12 shusi was intended.
It would also tend to suggest we really ought now to ask the question – did the Sumerians sail to South America, or put the other way round, - did the Sumerians themselves come from South America?
main website Historic Atlantis in Bolivia